MRG Interactive Developments

Mesoscale Research Group, McGill University

A Graphically-based netCDF to FST File Converter
(cdf_cvt Version 1.2.13)

  • Intallation
  • Troubleshooting
  • Development
  • Download Latest Source
  • Bug Reports



    • Installation Instructions

    Requirements: The code for cdf_cvt was originally written for the IRIX 6.5 operating system. Ports to most Unix and Cygwin platforms should be fairly simple. The RPN Standard library and the netCDF libraries need to be installed before installing cdf_cvt. The cdf_cvt GUI requires perl version 5.6 or higher and the Tcl/Tk module written by Nick Ing-Simmons.

    Instructions: Download the latest release of cdf_cvt to your local machine. This will create a cdf_cvt-version.tar file in your destination directory. Untar the file using:

  • tar -xvf cdf_cvt-version.tar

    • This will create a directory cdf_cvt-version locally. Change to the new directory (the root directory for cdf_cvt) and type:

  • make all

    • This will compile the FORTRAN90 source code - it should take no more than a minute. Next, type:

  • make install INSTALLDIRS=destination

    • to install the binaries, scripts, and tables into the destination/bin and destination/etc subdirectories. Next, you will have to set the PERLLIB environment variable:

  • setenv PERLLIB destination/include (for C-shell family)
  • export PERLLIB=destination/include (for Bourne/Korn shell family)

    • this will push the directory containing the perl modules onto the @inc path during perl interpretation.



    Troubleshooting

    If you are upgrading from a previous version of cdf_cvt, be sure to run make uninstall INSTALLDIRS=destination to fully uninstall the old version before installing the upgrade. The new version will NOT overwrite existing files - this protects modified tables in the destination/etc subdirectory. An execution exception is caused if your perl executable is not installed in (or linked to) /usr/local/bin - you can either create the link or modify the first line of the cdf_cvt GUI (cdecode) in the src/perlTk directory to reflect the local path - then uninstall and reinstall the package. We hope to have this problem fixed in a future release. If you are having trouble installing cdf_cvt, please provide complete documentation with your     bug report.



    Development

    All development for the cdf_cvt prgogram was performed by the MRG at McGill University. Source code (FORTRAN90 and Perl/Tk) is freely distributed under the GNU Public Licence. Please see a copy of COPYING in the cdf_cvt root directory for further copyright information.

    We encourage you to make improvements to the cdf_cvt code, and ask that you pass along any improvements, with appropriate documentation, to our cdf_cvt developer.



    Bug Reports

    All bugs found with the production release of cdf_cvt should be reported to our developer. Please include a description of your platform and full documentation of the problem. If you are able to fix the bug independently, please make the necessary improvements to the code and send them as developments.

    Ron McTaggart-Cowan, cdf_cvt developer


    Questions or Comments? Contact our WebMaster.